Senior staff working for Republican Mark Robinson’s campaign for North Carolina governor have quit after a report revealed his alleged past postings on a porn website’s message board.
Robinson’s campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director and senior adviser all stepped down over the weekend, the campaign confirmed in a statement to US media.
The furniture maker-turned-politician, who is running to be the state’s first black governor, allegedly called himself a “black Nazi” on a porn website more than a decade ago, according to a report by CNN.
Robinson, who identifies as an evangelical Christian, branded the report “tabloid lies”. The BBC has not independently verified CNN’s claims.
“Let me reassure you, the things you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said in a video statement posted to X. He has subsequently avoided talking about the story.
The departure of top campaign staff came within days of the CNN exposé of Robinson’s online postings in which he is also reported to have said he preferred Hitler to then-President Barack Obama.
The report suggests that the alleged comments have now been removed from the adult website on which they appeared.
“I appreciate the efforts of these team members who have made the difficult choice to step away from the campaign,” Robinson said in a statement.
Among those who left Robinson’s team over the weekend were key adviser Conrad Pogorzelski, who helped Robinson win election as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor in 2020.
Pogorzelski also told US news outlets in a personal capacity that the group had left of their “own accord”.
The BBC has contacted Robinson campaign for comment.
Robinson is running for office in a critical swing state being targeted by both Republicans and Democrats ahead of November’s elections.
The candidate himself has resisted pressure to quit the race from state Republicans – and reportedly also from Donald Trump’s team. He was elected to be North Carolina’s first black lieutenant governor in 2020.
Trump himself has not publicly acknowledged the controversy. He previously endorsed Robinson for office, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids”.
Some voters who the BBC spoke to in North Carolina afterwards were nonplussed by the story, with one woman even saying she was planning to donate more money to the Robinson campaign.
The furore is being closely watched in the context of November’s presidential election.
The Tar Heel State is described as “purple”, as it could go either Democratic or Republican when picking the next US leader.
That said, polls in the governor contest have indicated a lead for Robinson’s rival, Democratic candidate Josh Stein, who is also the state attorney-general.
As the deadline for withdrawing from the governor contest passed on Thursday evening, Robinson remained the Republican candidate.
Even before the CNN exposé was published, Robinson was under scrutiny.
He has faced backlash over 2019 comments in a Facebook video about abortion on demand, when he said women should be “responsible enough to keep your skirt down”.
In 2021, he refused to apologise after triggering a backlash by saying that children should not be learning about “transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth”.